Bill O’Reilly (pause for blush at watching even as op. research…) has in several recent perorations taken out after “the progressive (cf. canadian) agenda”–a catch all for secular, tolerant, hand loose values.
Yesterday he chastized La Belladonna Coulter for conflating “liberals” with “progressives”.
He did so by way of DEFENDING liberals.
Oh, shit.
Didn’t all the liberals run for the progressive label like rats heading for the rail?
Debate:
Is this true, (ie, is there in fact a con-wide program to cut the remaining linguistic ground out from under the hapless left? If so, is it fair? If not, so the fuck what?
Would it not have been easier just to stand our ground on the word liberal, in the first place?
If they do succesfully de-legitimize “progressive”, your nominations for replacement weasal word.
I hope the term liberal dies, because first of all it is always used by foul-mouthing right-wingers and second of all, that’s the term we in the Netherlands use for foul-mouthing right wingers! It’s so confusing that it makes my head hurt! :smack:
To make matters worse, it means different things in at least five different countries. I looked it up once, drives you nuts.
Socialist is also such a &(*# term. The Netherlands is not a Socialist country. Social Security is privatised, along with everything else, except the railway infrastructure (just a matter of time, the railway companies are privatised).
[nationalistic rant start]
That we have actually managed to (among others) get basic health insurance for everyone in the country doesn’t mean were socialist, just smarter capitalists. Our modern approaches to abortion, euthanasia, drugs and so on tend to agree with many Republicans and Libertarians who seem to care more about individual freedom than about anything else (at least when I end up debating with them). Also, we are just about the only other country in the world that has decreased taxes over the last 30 years (at 38%).
[nationalitistic rant end]
Stupid U.S. folk. Get a real democracy. And stop wasting all that campaign money and use it for something useful instead.
Ha ha ha. Sorry, every once in a while I need to let myself go for a bit. I’ll be alright again in a minute.
For Marx’ sake, luce, contribute to the thread! What do you think we-who-are-somewhere-to-the-left-of-the-Democratic-Leadership-Council should call ourselves?
Where else is it confused except here? Since liberals in the modern US usage outnumber libertarians by several orders of magnitude, I think we have earned the right to the use of the word. Call us liberals, call us progressive, call us leftists. We’re still the future of the world.
Whats funny is the perception that it was simply a matter of conservatives making ‘liberal’ a bad word. As if all it takes is to repeatedly call something bad and the American people will blithely just buy it…hook, line and sinker. And yet when the yammering multitudes insisted that GW was an idiot, that he was stupid, a moron, sub-standard intellegence, yadda yadda yadda, it didn’t really take from what I could tell…except to the already converted of course. But then, they were already converted.
Now, I suppose you could say that the conservatives are just better at convincing the American people that what they say is truth than the left is. And perhaps thats just because they are evil, or better manipulators, or have control of the media, or control of the mind rays in Alaska, or have the help of aliens…whatever. And the left is just inept at getting their message of truth and justice and the American way across to the masses.
Sure…I conceed that all that COULD be true. However maybe…just maybe mind you…maybe the conservatives gained traction with the who ‘liberal’ thing because the American people had some real problems with ‘liberals’ and the ‘liberal agenda’. I’m just tossing this out as a point to consider mind you. But perhaps it would be benificial to at least THINK about the possibility that perhaps the liberal agenda is a bit out of phase with the American people…and perhaps one of the reasons ‘liberal’ is disparaged for more reasons that just because the conservatives made it a talking point.
Anyway, just wanted to toss that out…you can now go back to kumbya and those evil but effective conservative manipulators.
Well put, and I say that through gritted teeth. We Democrats seem to be running out of feet to shoot ourselves in:
*We lose an election amid an unpopular war to one of the most incompetent men to ever hold the office.
*We nominate a mediocre career pol who, in the absence of legislative accomplishment, makes his dubious war experience the centerpoint of his campaign.
*We celebrate our unpleasant, infantile mouthpieces. Michael Moore sits next to President Carter…President Carter!…at the convention. There is no shortage of addle-brained celebrities supplying quotes to the media. The proud craft of broadcasting reaches it’s nadir when Janeane Garofalo is granted a radio show.
*Our “agenda” was once one of civic duty, service, responsibility. That gave way to the ACLU’s obsession with erasing religion from our history (Los Angeles county seal), the Democrats’ obsession with keeping partial birth abortion legal and a preoccupation with our rights. “My rights! My rights!” Grow up.
I could go on. Admitting there’s a problem is the first step.
Again: our history is one of civic duty, service, responsibility. We treat our opponents with grace and respect and leave the low road to them. We look out for each other, even if it means higher taxes. We hold dear both the secular and religious qualities of our society, and show contempt for neither. These are our values. If we can get back to that, liberal won’t be a synonym for shrieking whiner anymore.
